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Thursday, January 12, 2017

The Fading Sun: Kesrith

C.J. Cherryh's The Fading Sun: Kesrith (1978) has been with me since high school. My best friend, Steve - the first person I gamed with - read the entire Fading Sun trilogy back then. He really liked its narrative about the Kel, a dying race of honorable space mercenaries, and their dog-bear (sehlat?) companions. I finished Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit last month; Lee's faction of black-clad warriors is also called the Kel. This can't be a coincidence.

4 comments:

Thanks for stopping by, Clash! Maybe 10 years ago at Wiscon, I was fortunate to sit in on a wide-ranging one-man panel by a huge Cherryh fan. It was done by someone who was a kid who grew up on her street, whose mom made an introduction! This is my third Cherryh novel (I've read "Pride of Chanur" and Gate of Ivrel) so I have a LOT ahead of me!

Definitely! It was an influence on Strange Stars for sure, but I have been thinking a lot about both Traveller and Diaspora as I read it. I have less than 60 pages to go, and should finish it by the end of the month, but I have to get Everfair finished by tomorrow for a reading group!

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"In your day you have learnt to calculate something of the magnitudes of space and time. But to grasp my theme in its true proportions, it is necessary to do more than calculate. It is necessary to brood upon these magnitudes, to draw out the mind toward them, to feel the littleness of your here and now, and of the moment of civilization you call history." - Olaf Stapledon